Chapter 31 Adaline
Adaline
The notification hits like a warning shot—sharp, sudden, impossible to ignore.
I’m standing at my dresser with a hairbrush frozen in my hand, my reflection calm while my thoughts scatter. Uninvited, they drift to Hunter’s arms around me when everything went dark.
The way he said, “You’re safe.” Felt less like comfort. More like a promise.
The realization settles quietly—no panic, no spiraling—just something warm and inevitable taking root.
I miss him.
Even knowing he’s right down the hall.
My phone buzzes once on the nightstand.
HeartLines.
For a second, I assume it’s nothing, maybe an app update, some reminder I forgot to turn off. But when I glance down, my stomach drops.
North: 1 new message.
My thumb hovers over the screen and doesn’t move.
Heat crawls up my neck, sharp and immediate. North is a name on a screen. A voice made of typed words. Someone who has never asked for my real name, my face, or my address, because he’s never needed more than the version of me I could fit into words.
And yet, my heart reacts as if I’ve been caught doing something wrong.
North used to be my anchor, until he disappeared, never replying to my last message. The truth is, I haven't missed his absence. It hurt at first, but so much has happened since the fundraiser night.
Hunter has been there.
That night, when I shook so hard I couldn’t stop, he wrapped me up and told me to breathe, like my panic was something he could carry.
And somehow, he did.
Hunter isn’t safe because he’s distant. He’s terrifying because he’s real.
My phone buzzes again, like it’s impatient with my hesitation. I swallow, drag in a breath, and tap the notification.
The chat opens.
The last messages are still there, my own words from that night, panicked and raw. The ones I sent when I was lost and soaked and shaking, when I told him I needed a friend, when I admitted I wanted to meet.
I feel heat crawl up my neck just seeing them. Like I’m reading my own diary out loud to a stranger.
Then I see the new one.
North: Are you okay?
I just stare.
Another message appears, like he’s typing faster than my thoughts can catch up.
North: I’m sorry I disappeared.
I blink hard, staring at the screen.
A third message.
North: Something happened. Something life-altering. I didn’t know how to handle it. I’m still… trying.
I realize my fingers have gone numb around the phone.
Life-altering.
My mind immediately fills in worst-case scenarios. An accident. A death. The kind of thing that knocks your life off its track and leaves you standing in the wreckage, wondering which parts are still yours.
And then, beneath that, I feel something colder, something sharper.
You vanished when I needed you.
The thought isn’t fair. It’s also true. My thumb moves slowly. I type, then delete. Type again.
Delete again.
Because what do I even say? That I was lost in the woods?
That my boss—my grumpy, impossible boss—found me and held me so tight it felt like letting go wasn’t an option?
I press my fingertips to my temple, forcing my thoughts into something calmer.
I can't say all that.
So I answer the way I’ve learned to respond when I’m holding a secret too big to share.
Carefully.
Wind: I’m okay.
The word “okay” feels like a lie and a shield at the same time.
I add more before I can second-guess myself.
Wind: That night was hard for me. Really hard. But things are… better now.
I stare at the message after I send it, heart thudding. Better now. Is it true? Yes.
Not because my life is magically fixed. But because something inside me has changed.
I’m not the same woman who arrived at Rexon mansion bracing for disaster, terrified of losing everything again.
I’ve been learning, slowly, painfully, how to stand in my own life without shrinking.
I type again, words coming easier now that I’ve started.
Wind: I’m trying to be stronger. I’m learning how.
That part is true enough that it makes my throat ache.
A reply comes quickly.
North: I’m glad you’re okay. I hate that I wasn’t there.
I exhale slowly, my gaze drifting to the dark window, to the quiet reflection of my room.
My fingers hover again.
The truth wants to spill out. The rawness of it. The loneliness. I offer another truth instead, one that’s safer, and still honest.
Wind: I’m not scared of losing my job anymore.
A month ago, that statement would’ve meant the world to me.
My job used to be my entire security system. A paycheck was survival. Losing it meant free-falling.
Now?
Now the fear has moved. Because there’s something else at stake.
Something I didn’t even know I wanted.
I hesitate, then type the sentence that makes my pulse spike.
Wind: But I am scared of losing something far more important.
The second I hit send, my chest tightens. Like I’ve just stepped into an open field, and there’s no cover.
The reply comes almost instantly.
North: What is it?
My throat closes, and I stare at the question until my vision blurs slightly.
What is it? Is it Hunter’s trust?
The answer feels like a confession I’m not ready to make.
Not to North.
Not when the truth is tangled up in another man entirely.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard, but nothing comes.
I can’t answer. So I redirect.
I deflect and make it about him.
Wind: You said something life-altering happened. What happened?
I wait, breath held, heart unsettled because I know what I just did.
I didn’t just avoid the question.
I avoided the truth.
Sitting in the quiet of my room, with the glow of HeartLines lighting my hands, I can’t stop thinking about how different it feels now.
A few days ago, North’s silence felt like abandonment.
Tonight, even with his message on the screen, all I can think is, I don’t want to lose something far more important.
And I don’t know how to admit that the thing I’m afraid of losing might be sitting down the hall, in a mansion that somehow stopped feeling like a hiding place and started feeling like a home.
Even worse?
The person I’m afraid of losing might be looking at me the same way I’ve started looking at him.
Like this is already too real to survive.
The three dots appear. Disappear. And then, appear again.
I stare at them like they’re a pulse, proof that somewhere out there, North is real enough to be typing, real enough to be breathing through the same moment I’m breathing through.
Then the message arrives.
North: I should’ve answered you. I should’ve been there.
North: But I need to tell you something now.
My stomach tightens.
It’s the kind of sentence that comes before a confession. The kind of sentence that changes the air in a room, even when you’re alone.
I swallow and type before I can talk myself out of it.
Wind: I have something to confess too.
The honesty lands heavier than I expected.
Because I’m confessing about the fact that I’m no longer the same woman who was clinging to this chat like it was a lifeline.
A response comes fast.
North: Then let me go first. Please.
I hesitate, my thumb hovering.
Something in me wants to say no. Not out of cruelty, but out of instinct. Like my body is already preparing for something I’m not sure I can handle.
Still, I type.
Wind: Okay.
A beat passes.
North: I want you to know me for real.
My lungs forget what they’re doing.
I read it once. Twice. Like repetition will make it less shocking.
North: Not just this. Not just words.
North: I want to meet you. In person.
My heartbeat drops too low, like it can’t decide if this is what it wanted or what it’s afraid of.
Because weeks ago, maybe even days ago, that line would’ve felt like an answer.
I would’ve stared at it in the dark, imagining what he looked like, imagining what it would feel like to sit across from the man who held all my secrets.
But now?
Now my first thought isn’t excitement.
It's Hunter.
It’s the way his hands wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. The way he shielded me from hot coffee without thinking. The way he read my fear without me having to say it.
I close my eyes, the guilt returning in a sharp twist. Because North is offering me what I asked for.
And I don’t want it anymore.
I stare at the chat screen, at North’s words, and for a second I feel like the villain in my own story, like I’ve been building a bridge to someone, and now I’m standing on it, staring down, realizing I can’t cross.
My fingers hover over the phone. This is where I could lie. This is where I could say maybe.
But I’m so tired of living in maybes.
And Hunter, whether he knows it or not, has been pulling me out of that habit—out of survival mode, out of the constant calculation of how to protect myself. Somewhere along the way, I stopped doing what makes everyone else comfortable and started admitting what I want.
If I’m going to be brave, I have to be honest.
Even when it costs me something.
I type slowly, each word feeling like I’m lifting a weight I’ve been carrying too long.
Wind: I don’t think that’s a good idea.
The reply doesn’t come immediately. My hands tremble, and I exhale a shaky breath.
I keep going before I can undo it.
Wind: I need to tell you the truth I’ve been avoiding.
I pause, heart pounding hard enough to make my fingertips pulse.
Then I do it.
Wind: I think we should end this. Our friendship.
Wind: And I don’t want to meet.
The words sit there, stark and final.
My eyes sting. I didn’t mean for it to feel like grief, but it does.
Because North mattered. Even if he was just text on a screen.
Even if he vanished at the worst possible moment.
He was there through so many nights when I couldn’t sleep. When my world felt too loud and too unsafe and too lonely. He talked me down from spirals. He made me feel less alone.
Ending it feels like cutting off a piece of myself I used to rely on.
But it also feels… clean. Honest.
Then I add without explaining too much.
Wind: Something significant is happening in my life right now.
I don’t type Hunter’s name. I don’t type my boss.
I don’t type the man who keeps showing up in ways I didn’t know I needed.
But the truth vibrates behind the words anyway. Because that’s who I mean.
My phone stays still for a long moment. No reply.
And in that silence, old fear tries to creep in.
He’ll be angry. He’ll tell me I led him on. He’ll remind me that I begged to meet him. He’ll call me selfish for wanting him when it suited me and letting go when it got complicated.
I swallow hard, forcing my fingers to move again, before my courage dies.
Wind: Thank you. For everything.
Wind: You were there for me during the hardest months of my life.
Wind: You listened. You stayed. You reminded me to keep going when I didn’t want to.
My vision blurs slightly.
I blink it away, breathing through the ache.
Wind: I won’t forget that.
Another pause.
Then his reply appears, short enough to knock the air out of me.
North: Always.
Just one word.
And somehow it holds all the warmth he ever gave me, all the quiet support that kept me afloat.
A second message follows.
North: I’m glad you’re safe.
North: I’m glad you’re happy.
Happy.
I stare at the word like it’s a question. Am I happy?
I don’t know if I’m there yet. But I know I’m closer than I’ve been in a long time.
I swallow, my fingers hovering over the screen, but there’s nothing left to say that won’t reopen the wound.
So I do the hardest thing. I let the conversation end. I lock my phone and set it down on the bed.
Confirming the silence. Choosing it. And then something strange happens.
Relief.
The soft kind. The kind that settles in your chest like a blanket after you’ve been cold for too long.
Now that I’ve ended it, I don’t feel empty. I feel… peaceful. Like the part of me that kept reaching for him has finally unclenched.
Like, I can stop waiting.
My gaze drifts to the door, the hallway beyond my room. And without thinking, my hand lifts.
My fingertips brush my lips. A small, unconscious touch, like my body is remembering something.
Hunter.
His hand brushing wet hair from my face. His breath close in the truck.
The way his eyes flicked to my mouth like he was fighting himself.
Heat curls low in my stomach, dangerous and thrilling.
And the terrifying truth settles in with it, I didn’t end things with North because I stopped needing comfort. I ended it because I finally found something real.
I know exactly who I’m thinking about when my fingers linger on my lips in the quiet.
And I don’t know what happens next, but I know I’m already falling.